This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education by Jose Vilson I had the privilege to interview Jose Vilson in 2015 the first time I read his book. This is the second time I’ve read this book and like any great book I learned new things each time. Same words, […]
This week editor Derrick Grose and his team of editors released their inaugural edition of the Canadian School Libraries Journal. Derrick says: “This first issue of the Canadian School Library Journal reflects the exciting times in which we are working” and “the actual work being done in school libraries”. For those of you who don’t know, […]
In 2015 award-winning author John Vaillant released his first novel “The Jaguar’s Children” saying that the issues of Mexico’s plight are just too complex to do justice in a non-fiction book. The book cover shows a wall….the same wall that everyone is talking about in 2017. It’s this wall that our main characters Hector and […]
Trying to grow and sustain a book club over 5 months has been a real experiment. It all culminates in the biggest and best conference on educational technology in Ontario (maybe Canada!) which is the Bring IT Together conference. If you’ve never been before, you’ll find a whole bunch of people who want to enable […]
I’ve just finished reading George Couros‘ “The Innovator’s Mindset” and I think it’s time that we addressed the elephant in the room. The word “mindset” is so five minutes ago. There I said it. What I mean is that putting the words innovator and mindset together in the same phrase is oxymoronic…it’s a contradiction in […]
Why an online book club and why now? I like to read things that inform my professional trajectory I like to find people who like to read and engage in rich discussions about what we read I want to build a tighter community of educators that cross subjects and grades Last year we used the […]
The first time I had an internet experience that crossed cultural boundaries was when I was using a first gen music sharing site like Napster to find J-Pop. I just happened to notice that this particular pirate/curator liked a lot of the same music that I did from my first stint teaching ESL in Japan […]
Welcome to all new members of #BIT15Reads! Hello to all of you who’ve been with us since the beginning. We gained almost 30 new members since November 4th bringing our total membership to 92 members. Fantastic. I’d like to propose a few ideas for moving forward: a) we keep the name #BIT15Reads until Dec. 31, […]
Bright and early Sunday morning at 10 am EST (we changed the clocks back an hour in Ontario), author Jose Luis Vilson joins me to talk about his book This is not a test: A new narrative on race, class and education. Taking a moment to reflect on Jose’s work and how he described it […]
Today at 5:00 pm ET Clive Veroni joins me to discuss his book Spin Veroni’s book Spin revolves around the idea that modern media marketing has completely changed politics and business practices from autocratic to democratic….much the same way that education is moving. There are so many things that Clive said that both reaffirm and […]
Author Rosemary Lehman joins me today to talk about her book Motivating and Retaining Online Students As you can see in my video, there are a lot of stickies on my copy of her book! It was a genuine thrill to speak with her today and being able to ask her questions deepened my understanding […]
Tonight at 7:30 pm I will go live with Heather Durnin and Deb McCallum about their reading and experience in the BIT15Reads bookclub so far. Deb is reading Motivating and Retaining Online Students by Rosemary Lehman, and Heather is reading This is Not a a Test by Jose Vilson. Both authors have agreed to be interviewed […]
The Glass Cage: Automation and Us by Nicholas Carr My rating: 3 of 5 stars Like most people with an urban mindset, Nicholas Carr’s point of view focuses on being able to purchase goods and services at his fingertips. This is why, once again, his writing alienates people like me…people who live in a rural […]
Dataclysm: Who We Are by Christian Rudder My rating: 5 of 5 stars I can already think of 12 people in my school who should read this book. That hasn’t happened to me since Danah Boyd‘s It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. I will pass this on to the math teachers, the social science […]
Geek Sublime: The Beauty of Code, the Code of Beauty by Vikram Chandra My rating: 4 of 5 stars In Vikram Chandra’s final words of Geek Sublime: The Beauty of Code, the Code of Beauty, he says: “Makers tend to fetishize tools that they use successfully, and computer geeks are no exception—hackers will tell you […]
threadbare beauty 